Note: This
is an excerpt from Chapter 25 of Leadership Texas Hold em Style

Morale

You cannot survive without that intangible quality we
call heart. The mark of a top player is not how much he wins when he is winning
but how he handles his losses. If you win for thirty days in a row, that makes
no difference if on the thirty-first you have a bad night, go crazy, and throw
it all away.

Bobby Baldwin on Poker

Morale is
incredibly
important in any organization; it affects everything. It affects how people
treat one another, their work quality and even the way in which they answer the
phone. It is elusive in nature but palpable in its impact. If morale is low,
it is a problem even if everything else in an organization is strong. Karl Von
Clausewitz, a Prussian military general and military theorist, identified morale
as a fundamental military principle. Since Clausewitz published On War, morale
has developed into a concept seen as critical to organizations. Unfortunately,
morale is difficult to define and in many circles has become somewhat synonymous
with motivation. But, morale is not about motivation.

Research
indicates
that high morale creates a more productive and safe workplace. When morale is
high employees are enthusiastic, dedicated, and creative. They have a personal
investment in their work and gain a sense of fulfillment from it. The quality
of work and the quality of the workplace are both increased when morale is
high. Traditional definitions of morale include: the mood of individuals in the
workplace; attitude or spirit; how a unit feels about itself and its abilities;
and, even a state of individual psychological well-being. As you can see, these
definitions go back and forth between the individual and groups. We all have
good and bad days. Yet, as individuals who occasionally wake up on the wrong
side of the bed, we generally dont affect the mood of the entire unit. As our
personal attitude ebbs and flows, the morale of our unit is marching to a
different drummer. In a previous chapter we talked about your individual
attitude as a leader. Here, we are looking at the overall attitude of your work
unit.

Morale is
about groups
and it might be defined as how a group feels about what it does. For instance,
this group feeling can be an expression of how high or low the group values an
activity. If a group of detectives have their job suddenly changed and they find
themselves working in uniform and issuing traffic citations, they may have
lowered morale because they place a low value on working in uniform and issuing
citations.

For the detectives,
their normal working conditions do not involve uniformed activities nor issuing
citations. The activity is outside their group norm and not highly valued.
Morale is about sub-group norms and values and their alignment with larger
organizational norms and values. For our hapless detectives, working in uniform
and issuing citations is not the norm nor highly valued by the group.
Therefore, when the larger organization imposes new norms and values, if the
group maintains its previous norms and values there is a misalignment which
manifests itself as low morale. The detectives will show-up in uniform and
issue citations but because of the misalignment between group and organizational
values we can expect them to have lowered morale and probably not issue many
citations.

A norm is the
behavior expected within a group of individuals. It is a belief shared by the
group about what is normal and acceptable. In groups we establish norms so that
we can anticipate and judge the actions of other group members. In law
enforcement, we have a strong safety norm. We expect our peers to be tactically
sound and safe. We place a high value on this norm. Value is an expression of
worth we place on an activity. In other words, groups can have many norms
(safety and productivity) and they can place differing values on those norms.
For instance, we generally value safety over productivity.

If your
organization developed a new rule, policy or procedure that seemed to value
productivity over safety, morale would most likely be lower. Employees would
have the previous value scheme wherein safety was more important than
productivity. They would not feel good about the change. Also, like the
detectives who were asked to issue citations, if the organization rapidly
changes the norm, employee morale falls. It is the imposed change in the value
or norm that lowered morale.

Changes and
challenges
to sub-group norms come from both inside and outside the organization. If a
police officer is killed, especially in the line-of-duty, many group norms and
values are challenged. Police officers face dangerous situations daily. The
norm is that police officers, as individuals or members of a team, overcome
those dangers. The death can represent an inability to overcome danger thereby
challenging the norm. Moreover, we value human life as well, the individual
person who died, and safety. An on-duty death can shake all three values. This
outside challenge to the norm can lead to a lowering of morale.

Sub-group
changes from
within are somewhat more subtle. A sub-group with high congruence to
organizational values can find itself drifting towards new sub-group norms and
values and experience lowered morale. As an example, weak small-unit leadership
can lead to deviant peer group behavior becoming the norm. Perhaps the leader
allows a clique to grow within the workplace. A clique will develop its own
norms and values. Typically, it will value clique membership more than wider
workgroup membership. This change in values leads to a change in normal
behavior which manifests itself as a reduction in workgroup morale.

When groups feel
good about what they do, they experience high morale. Certainly, high morale
can lead to improved productivity and quality. If we accept the proposition
that morale is an expression of sub-group alignment with larger organizational
norms and values, an increase in productivity and quality makes sense. As an
example, if the sub-group and the larger organization both value traffic
citations, traffic citations will be issued.

For law enforcement,
sub-group alignment with larger organizational norms and values is even more
critical. Police officers work in a high-discretionary environment. Basically,
we choose when to intervene and what to do. The use of discretion is driven by
our norms and values. In other words, our decisions will reflect our alignment
with organizational norms and values. Consider the impact of norms and values
alignment on high-discretionary activities like the application of reasonable
suspicion, probable cause, use of force, and vehicle pursuits. Simply put,
high morale leads to greater group and individual integrity. As you can see,
morale is critical to your organization.

In most organizations,
management as a whole is collectively responsible for morale. This is fine in
theory, but generally does not have a practical application because morale is
such an inclusive and intangible attribute most closely associated with
sub-groups within an organization. Through experience, Andrew has developed a
technique that can improve morale as a whole by breaking it down into more
manageable pieces.